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Triple Constraint

Project Management is the act of organizing resources such as scope, time and cost to bring about a desired result. Triple Constraint is the balance of the project’s scope, schedule (time) and cost. It is sometimes called Dempster’s triangle wherein one of the sides or corners represent the scope, time and cost of a project being managed by the project managers. Triple constraint is used to gauge whether a project’s objectives are being met. During the planning process of a project, the project management team define the project scope, time, cost and quality of a project. As the process continues, the project managers discover that there may be some changes or adjustments to be made in one of the project’s scope, time and cost. When this happens, the other factors of the triple constraint is likely to be affected as well. For example, if the cost increases, it is logical to assume that the scope and time will increase as well. The same thing happens if the cost decreases, the scope and time will decrease too. It is the job of the project management team to respond to the project risk which is a possible incident or condition which can have a good or bad effect on the project.

This term is defined in the 3rd edition of the PMBOK but not in the 4th.